štúdia:

Lifestyle Changes – Sociological Assumptions. Lifestyle is a complicated and ambivalent concept that can be used as a tool for reflecting social change. The operationalization of this concept is rather difficult, and if it is done, lifestyle is mostly reduced to the spheres of leisure and material consumption. In this article, it is argued that nowadays, when previously solid institutions have become optional, lifestyle has also been influenced by individual choices in the spheres of paid work and private life. Therefore, the article focuses on a description of changes in four main areas of everyday life that influence individual and group lifestyles in a decisive way: paid work, leisure, consumption, and family and intimate life. These changes indicate that people's lives have become more differentiated, not only through a manifestation of traditional social distinctions (such as income and social status), but to a large extent also through spheres that previously were able to provide people with feelings of stability and certainty.
Sociológia 2015, Vol. 47 (No. 1: 5-30)

The Role of Human Capital in Labour Market Outcomes: A Comparative Study of Six European Nations Participating in the PIAAC Project. The main objective of the paper is to examine the role of measured competencies in labour market outcomes in two groups of European nations (the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland on the one hand, and Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium on the other) that differ not only in their long term historical development, but also in their current orientation toward innovations, labour market flexibility, the openness of tertiary education and gender equality. The results of structural modelling based on data from the PIAAC (adult competencies) project of the OECD provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that the direct positive effect of competencies on labour market outcomes (namely on wages) are stronger in innovation-oriented countries, while the transitive (Central European) countries exhibit a stronger tendency towards factors typical for a “credential society” (characterised by the stronger role of formal education and larger wage gender gaps).
Sociológia 2015, Vol. 47 (No. 1: 31-65)

European Union; new member states; perception; decision-making process; national interest

National Interest as the Top Priority: Perception of the New Member States of the EU. This paper analyses the perception of the new EU member states from the old member states' point of view. It is based on 24 interviews with diplomats from permanent representations of the old member states to the EU in Brussels. The paper points out that the eastern enlargement of the EU is seen in a rather positive light, as are changes in the decision-making process of the European Council. The newcomers are especially active in areas of their national interest, although they have not learned all the “rules of the game” yet and sometimes pursue their preferences in contrast to what the old members perceive as a more appropriate approach.
Sociológia 2015, Vol. 47 (No. 1: 66-86)

Politics in the Supermarket: Boycotting Consumers as Agents of Social Change. At first glance, searching for why consumers abstain from certain products seems part of a research agenda that should primarily be elucidated by marketing literature. In fact, an individual's refusal to buy some goods used to be perceived as a matter of the marketplace, where the economic laws of supply and demand markedly predetermine a consumer's decision to purchase a product. However, in past decades, boycotts have been strongly interconnected with the concept of political participation, although the political nature of consumer behaviour often seems to be controversial. As some theorists of civic engagement have pointed out, in light of the incessant widening of the repertoire of participatory modes, studying political participation is not too far from “the theory of everything.” This article makes an effort to introduce boycotting as a relevant tool for influencing political affairs. It deals with the application of the approach developed by Sidney Verba and his colleagues that parsimoniously tells why some people are politically active while others are not. It asks whether their well-known Civic Voluntarism Model provides a suitable theoretical framework for explaining such a specific form of individual political action as boycotting in the 41 countries included in the fourth wave of the European Values Study (EVS). Due to the hierarchical data structure, multilevel models are employed to examine the effects of individual as well as contextual variables on the probability of a boycott.
Sociológia 2015, Vol. 47 (No. 1: 87-112)

Slovak development cooperation; non-governmental development orga¬nizations; political actors; stereotypes; partnership

Slovak Non-Governmental ‘Development’ Organizations as Political Actors. The article attempts to pose questions about the political character of the Slovak non-governmental „development“ organizations. It first uses three typologies to ask what kind of actor they are. Then it focuses on the period before 1998 to ask about the continuities in the political activities of the NGDOs after 1998 with the NGOs before the fall of Vladimír Mečiar’s government. In the last section it focuses on their advocacy work, reproduction of colonial stereotypes, corruption abroad and the problem of ownership as political issues that are salient for the slovak NGDOs.
Sociológia 2015, Vol. 47 (No. 1: 113-138)